Obamacare outreach goes local to push coverage

The White House is reaching into statehouses and city halls to spread the message about the health law clear of the inside-the-Beltway noise.

State lawmakers, mayors, county executives and other local officials are working with the administration to boost enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges over the next three months and spur state expansion of the Medicaid program. The effort is particularly pronounced in red and purple states where GOP officials shunned big pieces of the Affordable Care Act, creating barriers to outreach and enrollment.

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During the big December push to get people signed up for coverage that began Wednesday, groups of local lawmakers came to the White House to swap outreach strategy, effective messaging and “tool kits” to share back home. Local officials also participated in conference calls to advocate for state expansion of the Medicaid program, which about half the states have rejected.

“It’s a way of communicating the reality [of the health law] directly to citizens. That’s certainly true in Georgia and Texas and Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and North Carolina,” said David Agnew, the White House director of intergovernmental affairs, listing some of the states where GOP governors have been particularly hostile.

Beset by website problems and an uproar about broken promises, the initial rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement did not go well. If local officials can get a positive message across, it could help overcome the troubled opening months. Consumers have until March 31 to sign up for 2014 coverage.

In their home markets, local officials provide a familiar face — one that’s seen on the local news or even at the grocery store — on a national story.

“It’s a way of putting the facts and the truth in front of large groups of citizens,” Agnew said. “If [Philadelphia] Mayor Michael Nutter stands up and [talks about the law] in Pennsylvania, a lot of people hear it. If Mayor Kasim Reed talks about it in Atlanta, a lot of people hear it.”

Whether the effort is successful won’t be clear until the six-month enrollment season ends. But local officials say their message about the law’s benefits is getting out.

In Georgia, for instance, statehouse Democrats have hosted ACA town hall meetings with average attendance of “40, to 50, to 100 people,” said Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who has taken up the call of Obamacare messaging.

“I don’t know if you’ve been to state legislators’ town halls, but 30 people is a windfall,” she said.

That may be a drop in the bucket, given the Obama administration’s goal of enrolling 7 million people by the end of March. But advocates say it adds up, and local officials can motivate people who wouldn’t have enrolled based on a presidential speech or a television commercial. It’s particularly effective when there’s also help on hand for people ready to fill out an application.

The local voices are also filling a financial void. Republicans on Capitol Hill have blocked all attempts by the administration to put additional money into the law or outreach efforts.

“I know from calls we’ve had, the White House said from the beginning that they knew there wasn’t going to be enough federal dollars to do the outreach,” said Nebraska state Sen. Jeremy Nordquist, another ACA supporter who has joined White House-state level strategy calls. “That it really had to be a grass-roots effort of people talking with their neighbors or fellow churchgoers.”

Nordquist and other state lawmakers have exchanged ideas about how to talk about a Democratic legislative accomplishment in areas where residents weren’t immediately receptive to it.